Ecommerce giant Uber reached the 2 billion ride milestone on June 18, just 6 months after hitting 1 billion according to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. "It took five years to reach our billionth trip, six months to reach the next billion … and we'll hopefully reach our third even more quickly," Kalanick said in a Facebook post. "Thanks to all the drivers out there for making every trip possible." This equates to a pace of roughly 5.5 million completed trips per day.

Kalanick said that "in that single second a month ago, 147 Uber rides started—tying for our two billionth trip." He emphasized the worldwide reach of Uber today. "These trips happened in 16 countries on five continents, from Costa Rica to Russia and from China to Australia. The longest of the bunch lasted more than an hour as the rider and driver worked their way across Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. The shortest, a POOL trip in Changsha, China, lasted just three minutes."

Uber is now in 450 cities around the world. So what's the reward for the lucky 147 drivers and riders? "We're giving $450 to each," said Kalanick.

With Uber's continued growth, the company is likely to increase its current pace of 2 billion rides a year. Its emphasis on China should only accelerate growth, where it is in desperate competition with China's ridesharing leader Didi Chuxing. China is now Uber's biggest market in the world when measured by number of rides and amazingly accounts for a third of its business worldwide. "We are number two in China, which means that we still have a ways to go," Kalanick told FT earlier this year. "But we are putting everything on the field."

Last year Didi Chuxing arranged 1.4 billion rides in China, more than Uber has done worldwide in its history up until its recent 2 billion ride announcement.